,
please note the second and third pages of the cover of the present number.
We have nothing farther to add, than that 'what _has been_, is that which
_shall be_,' in our onward progress. This Magazine, much the oldest in the
United States, has been established, by the ever-unabated favor of the
public, upon a basis of unshaken permanence. Its subscription-list
fluctuates only in advance; it has the _affection_ of its readers, and all
concerned in its production and promulgation, to a degree wholly
unexampled; and it is designed not only to maintain, but continually to
enhance, its just claims upon the liberal patronage of American readers.
The arrangements for the next volume, if they do not 'preclude
competition,' will be found, it is confidently believed, to preclude any
thing like successful rivalry, on the part of any of our contemporaries.
On this point, however, we choose as heretofore to be judged by the
public. . . . WE gave in a recent issue two or three extracts from a
lecture on '_The Inner Life of Man_' delivered by Mr. CHARLES HOOVER, at
Newark, New-Jersey. This admirable performance has since been repeated to
a highly gratified audience in this city; and from it we derive the
following beautiful passage, which we commend to the heart of every lover
of his kind: 'It is a maxim of patriotism never to despair of the
republic. Let it be the motto of our philanthropy never to despair of our
sinning, sorrowing brother, till his last lingering look upon life has
been taken, and all avenues by which angels approach the stricken heart
are closed and silent forever. And in such a crisis, let no counsel be
taken of narrow, niggard sentiment. When in a sea-storm some human being
is seen in the distant surf, clinging to a plank, that is sometimes driven
nearer to the shore, and sometimes carried farther off; sometimes buried
in the surge, and then rising again, as if itself struggling like the
almost hopeless sufferer it supports, who looks sadly to the shore as he
rises from every wave, and battling with the billow, mingles his cry for
help with the wild, mournful scream of the sea-bird; nature in every bosom
on the shore is instinct with anxious pity for his fate, and darts her
sympathies to him over the laboring waters. The child drops his
play-things, and old age grasps its crutch and hurries to the spot; and
the hand that cannot fling a rope is lifted to heaven for help. What
though the sufferer be a stranger, a fo